KUWAIT CITY : A total of 2,433,559 foreigners are currently residing in Kuwait, reports Al-Anba daily quoting the General Department for Residency Affairs.

In its latest statistical report, the department revealed that the expatriate population in the country consists of 1,612,699 men and 820,550 women.

According to the report, a total of 1,192,105 expatriates are employed in the private sector (visa 18); 99,940 are working in public institutions (visa 17) and the number of domestic helpers (visa 20) reached 619,895 — one of the highest in the GCC. On the other hand, the number of foreigners on family visas (visa 22) totaled 518,377and the number of foreign students is 655.

In a related development, gulfnews.com has reported that many expatriates are unskilled Asian laborers in the construction sector and domestic helpers. They make up two-thirds of the entire population and members of the Asian community outnumber the Kuwaitis.

Several lawmakers have repeatedly expressed concern over the lopsided population structure, prompting them to put pressure on the concerned authority to address the issue and take the necessary measures for the country not to completely rely on expatriate workers.

In November, the Legal and Legislative Affairs Committee in the Parliament endorsed a bill limiting the residency of expatriates to five years and to prevent them from bringing their families into the country.

This bill is the brainchild of MP Abdullah Al-Tamimi who also proposed limiting the size of any expatriate community to less than 10 percent of the Kuwaiti population; which means no community should be larger than 125,000 people.

At present, the Indian community is the largest with more than 670,000 members while the Egyptian community is the largest among Arabs with around 520,000 people. Once the bill is passed, these communities will be dramatically affected and thousands of foreigners will be forced to leave the country.